The Frame Called Ruin

Terse and fiery terms, strong emotions, and analogies from the visual arts dominate this often erotic, sometimes brilliant second collection from Bar-Nadav (A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight). “Show Me Yours,” a long poem in breathless short lines, imagines its central woman as seen by men, “A gumdrop girl in your pocket/ and the terrible lint of words.// How large your hunger,/ how empty your mouth.” Bar-Nadav has a sense of humor and a flair for personification, as in the disturbing poem spoken by a baby carriage “abandoned at the beach,” where “fog rots the fabled spokes/ where I once thought a god lived.” The prose blocks of “Inside the Maze” speak for the hungry Minotaur of Greek myth, while “Blur” commemorates victims of a suicide bomb in the Israeli resort, Eilat. Most often, Bar-Nadav’s favored spaces are inward, figurative, and all her own. “Romance nevertheless is true,” says the crucial line from “Let Me Hold the Kaleidoscope,” while a breathtaking ode at a colorful beach follows up its own hot invitations with scary suggestions: “Let’s climb a tree and hang you/ upside down by your knees/ while bears eat your honeyed mouth.” (Oct.)